Software architectural modeling of the CORBA Object Transaction Service

The OMG's Object Transaction Service (OTS) is an important CORBAService that provides transaction processing facilities on top of object request broker technology. With the OTS, specific interfaces and interaction models are introduced that intrinsically impact the design of single components and of component configurations that are to participate in transactional computation. We argue to record impacts as introduced by the OTS as distinct abstractions of design, and propose a software architectural approach to software system representation. We present a pattern-like connector abstraction for one processing model of the OTS, and discuss its use for modeling CORBA applications that interface the OTS. Using our concepts of connector and component abstractions, a vocabulary of design can be established, and design rationales for introducing component features can be well recorded, supporting continuous development of ORB-based systems.